Henk Huijser

Queensland University of Technology | QUT · Learning and Teaching Unit

In this end of year reflection on AJET in 2024, the editorial team consider the achievements of the journal and the changing academic publishing environment in which it operates. We profile two publications that the AJET Lead Editors contributed to this year that address the shifting dynamics of educational technology publishing and what these mean...

The field of educational technology (EdTech) is characterised by innovation and emerging technologies which continually provide new opportunities to enhance learning environments. As the theme of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) 2024 conference suggests, the field explores emerging frontiers in lea...

This manifesto critically examines the unfolding integration of Generative AI (GenAI), chatbots, and algorithms into higher education, using a collective and thoughtful approach to navigate the future of teaching and learning. GenAI, while celebrated for its potential to personalize learning, enhance efficiency, and expand educational accessibility...

This manifesto critically examines the unfolding integration of Generative AI (GenAI), chatbots, and algorithms into higher education, using a collective and thoughtful approach to navigate the future of teaching and learning. GenAI, while celebrated for its potential to personalize learning, enhance efficiency, and expand educational accessibility...

Assessing group work formatively in higher education poses a significant challenge. The complexity of evaluating individual contributions is compounded by the lack of efficient and effective methods for tracking, analysing and assessing individual engagement and contributions, which can impede timely feedback and the development of group work skill...

We explore the practical and strategic considerations essential for establishing and maintaining a successful virtual university. Building on core concepts from the book, Technology Enhanced Learning and the Virtual University (Sankey et.al., 2023) we highlight the need for strategic approaches to online and digital education. This panel discussion...

This symposium aims to identify key barriers and opportunities in developing learning design as a recognized profession through three provocative discussions. The first provocation challenges the distinctions among learning designers, instructional designers, educational technologists, and similar roles. The goal is to explore the potential for a u...

The field of educational technology (EdTech) is characterised by innovation and emerging technologies which continually provide new opportunities to enhance learning environments. As the theme of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE) 2024 conference suggests, the field explores emerging frontiers in lea...

The arrival of ChatGPT in late 2022 and the subsequent explosion of Gen AI tools and apps has had a significant disruptive effect in the higher education sector and has required a rapid response across the higher education sector. This response is needed at the institutional level of policy, as well as quality assurance. However, responses are also...

Collaboration or competition? This question is at the centre of this editorial, which explores the importance of sector-wide approaches to research into educational technology. This has become particularly relevant in recent years in response to a range of significant challenges or disruptions the tertiary education sector has had to face, for exam...

is a key element of a research article that can enhance the utility, discoverability and impact of the work presented. However, the quality and consistency of abstracts can vary, and the state of abstracts in the educational technology field has received little attention to date. In this editorial, we examine the purpose, structure and future of th...

Learning design has become increasingly important in the context of expanding and dynamic digital learning environments. More traditional teaching approaches are no longer sufficient to engage learners in these changing learning environments. Teachers and aspiring learning designers therefore increasingly need learning design expertise, which takes...

Many elements come together to make for a good, publishable manuscript in a high-impact educational technology journal. There are also some fatal errors and omissions that will doom a paper to be immediately declined. In this editorial, we focus on the latter. Checking the aims and scope of a journal is a simple step to ensure that the publication...

Like many sectors affected by the Coronavirus (Covid - 19) pandemic, the higher education sector was disrupted globally and needed immediate re-adjustments to provide distance learning solutions. Educational management contingency plans were initiated in many parts of the world to reach out to students isolated due to the pandemic; however, it quic...

Many elements come together to make for a good, publishable manuscript in a high-impact educational technology journal. There are also some fatal errors and omissions that will doom a paper to be immediately declined. In this editorial, we focus on the latter. Checking the aims and scope of a journal is a simple step to ensure that the publication...

Higher education faculty members have different attitudes about taking professional training courses online despite the post-pandemic shift towards e-learning. Limited studies have linked faculty’s emotions with their acceptance of technology and investigated their impacts on learning engagement in online professional development. This study addres...

Covid-19 raised a range of questions about the utility of the Learning Management System (LMS) and other technologies for teaching and learning, the advent of Generative AI (GenAI) poses new and fundamental questions about the teaching and learning technology ecosystem of our universities. We argue that these questions extend beyond the impact of G...

In this chapter the authors explore the use of learning analytics (LA) to track skills acquisition in tertiary education environments, with a specific focus on group work skills. They discuss the importance of design for learning with regards to developing professional attributes and skills for collaborative group work projects, before considering...

Learning management systems (LMSs) have long been adopted by tertiary education providers to be the conduit through which courses are delivered. However, debates about the capacity of the LMS to meet all the required current and future needs of both students and educators have become more pronounced over the past few years, particularly given the r...

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered an extraordinary opportunity to improve educational provision and consider alternatives to traditional teaching and learning. It has stimulated wide engagement in improving and evaluating educational practices. Bahrain Polytechnic moved to remote delivery during the pandemic, during which it also embraced piloting...

The chapter argues that ensuring academic integrity is vital to higher education, but it can be challenging to implement effectively. Academic staff may struggle due to unclear policies and a lack of support for the related administrative workload. Additionally, faculty members must balance their personal and institutional obligations, which can le...

This study investigated how student effort and the course design influenced an online internship in China. A cohort of 95 postgraduate students became distance learners in a credit-bearing internship course due to COVID-19. The course leader applied the action learning framework to prompt student online collaboration and group inquiry. The framewor...

Learning and teaching is no longer the exclusive domain of teaching academics and is increasingly reliant on third-space professionals, in particular learning designers. The sharing of the design of the learning and teaching space is underlined by the increasing collaboration between teaching academics and learning designers. This qualitative study...

This chapter provides a multicultural and multidisciplinary perspective on the identity constructions of a doctoral scholar, by engaging with a range of discourses and by challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about the purpose of doctoral studies. Such a kaleidoscopic perspective allows an ongoing reflective process, generating numerous strateg...

This poster shares insights about how we can reconnect, reskill, and upskill lifelong learners and employees through short courses for specific purpose in higher education. These insights emerged from a larger research project undertaken over the last year at three well-known Australian universities, where the authors are based. The wider research...

In this paper we present a case study of doctoral study at a distance, and we explore issues of belonging, pedagogy and learning as part of that process. As a team of one doctoral researcher and three supervisors, we critically reflect on the place of belonging in the context of doctoral study by distance. In this case study, the importance of belo...

This chapter uses reflective practice and narrative inquiry (Bold, Using narrative in research. London: Sage, 2012; Clandinin, Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodology. London: Sage, 2007; Engaging in narrative inquiry. San Francisco: Left Coast Press, 2013) to explore the intercultural and multicultural characteristics of the Postgradu...

In this final chapter, we depart to some extent from the regular practice of providing a summary of the volume’s content and some concluding thoughts. Instead, in this chapter, we work toward a further conceptualization of the ecology for learning we discussed in the Introduction to the volume. Thus, this chapter outlines the idea of an Interconnec...

This is the overall introduction to the volume, in which we outline the rationale behind the volume and its conceptualization. It poses the central question that was part of the initial call for chapters: are students customers of higher education, or are they learning in higher education? The authors of the more than 40 chapters in this volume all...

Purpose Engagement and participation of students with the learning process has been recognised as a growing problem across the higher education sector. The aim of this study was to investigate the value and impact of introducing Problem-based Learning (PBL) activities into a radiotherapy physics unit of a postgraduate medical physics course. Metho...

This paper’s second author is a doctoral student, based in Erbil, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, whose study focuses on peer education in refugee camps in that region. The other three co-authors are her supervisors, whom, to date, she has not physically met. Yet, we have created and sustained a productive ‘learning community’ from a distance. In...

Broad societal disruptions (i.e., the industrial revolution, digitalisation, and globalisation) have created a need for an increasingly adaptive higher education system in recent decades. However, the response to these disruptions by universities has generally been slow. Most recently, online learning environments have had to be leveraged by univer...

This paper explores industry-university partnerships in the creation of short courses and microcredentials. It is a position paper that precedes a pilot study. We scan the higher education environment for current practices and begin to explore the notion of a more consistent and strategic approach. Partnerships refer to both industry as partners in...

This chapter uses reflective practice and narrative inquiry (Bold, Using narrative in research. London: Sage, 2012; Clandinin, Handbook of narrative inquiry: Mapping a methodology. London: Sage, 2007; Engaging in narrative inquiry. San Francisco: Left Coast Press, 2013) to explore the intercultural and multicultural characteristics of the Postgradu...

To respond to the digital building environment and Industry 4.0 in building information modeling (BIM)-based mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) systems this study developed a new approach to engineering capstone projects. This article reports on a case study of the development of the innovative capstone project for engineering majors, which...

Enquiry into discipline-specific student learning is a central element of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Discipline-specific teaching and learning approaches have been called 'signature pedagogies' (Shulman, 2005), which raises the question of how applicable and/or relevant such pedagogies are beyond specific disciplines. In this...

This study aims to develop an evaluation framework for improving interdisciplinary BIM (Building Information Modeling) education in highway engineering. The evaluation framework is designed based on the Context-Input-Process-Product (CIPP) model and applied in an interdisciplinary BIM capstone project at Chongqing Jiaotong University. Four project...

In this paper, we examine the potential of authentic learning activities and assessment to enhance the student learning experience in a standalone introductory geospatial information science module. Computer laboratory sessions form seventy-five percent of contact hours and final grade, so authentic learning used a field-based project with specifie...

This special issue is about partnerships for scaled online learning and the unbundling of the traditional university. We are excited by the emerging models that are showcased; they are more diverse than we had originally envisaged. We hope this issue will be considered by readers as a valuable and timely contribution to a wider conversation about p...

Changing learner demographics and requirements are driving an increase in the range of private education available in the higher education sector. To stay current, universities may need to adapt to learner needs and rethink how they deliver education. This case study evaluates a model of delivery that is a collaboration of a traditional public univ...

This paper explores the use of a range of qualitative methods to measure learning gain of teaching assistants (TAs) in mainland China at a Sino-British University where the authors used to work. It uses a case study to report on an evaluation of TA training at the University, which is part of its Postgraduate Research Development Programme, to asce...

In the context of widening participation agendas and an increasingly demand-driven higher education sector with ever tighter public funding streams, it has become common to approach potential students as 'customers' as a means for improving performance quality. Transaction as a form of two-way (beneficial) engagement has given way to transaction as...

Enhancing students' interdisciplinary design ability in a highway engineering context is important for the development of building information modeling (BIM). This paper proposes a new paradigm for highway engineering and its service areas based on the BIM platform, integrating road, bridge, tunnel, engineering costing; architecture; structure; wat...

This study explored the correlations and relationships amongst three variables: students' class attendance, online engagement and academic performance in an EAP blended learning class. A two-step statistical testing was carried out for the investigation. The first-step Pearson correlation test indicated that both online engagement and class attenda...

This chapter outlines the multiple ways in which Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) activities might be activated and/or realized through the processes of curriculum and learning design of a degree program. Key dual enablers for these activities are an underpinning curriculum framework, bringing a series of defined developmental steps each...

This article explores the concept of an agile ecology for learning and its potential in leveraging creativity to engage students. Creativity is both seen as something that students bring with them from different part of their lives, across different formal and informal learning environments, but it is also seen as something that can be encouraged a...

Curriculum design in higher education is facing the challenge of satisfying increasing industry demands while preparing commencing students to become content specialists and autonomous learners. First-year curriculum design is a pivotal point for the entire degree and issues encountered there impact throughout the degree. A key issue at the first y...

Undergraduate nursing students often find essay writing challenging, and feel underprepared, yet the impact of using online feedback to support essay writing has been underexplored. First-year nursing students from a regional university were involved in a project that encouraged them to access an online tutoring service, as part of their developmen...

Getting your work published in journals in ways that will help to advance your scholarly record is a complex and multifaceted process. This article is written for early career researchers and graduate and postgraduate students, providing practical advice about what to consider when developing a research and publication profile and establishing your...

The concept of openness is multifaceted and can be addressed from a wide range of different angles. Here we focus on openness in education, with a particular focus on knowledge production and access. We thus also focus on the academic publishing industry, which is in constant flux and has seen considerable changes in recent years, partly due to rap...

Sector-wide research has shown the benefits of student-staff partnerships in course design whilst highlighting the complexity of this work, and the difficulties in gaining traction to create sustained ways of working. Reflections by academic developers on the roles and partnerships in course design at one Australian university reveal the critical t...

In this case study, we evaluated the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) initiative at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), an extracurricular programme that focuses on academic staff-student partnerships and collaborations. While not directly integrated into university degree programmes, SURF provides students with the opportun...

This chapter draws on data collected as part of an Australian Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) funded project, which explored the use of learning analytics for student retention and success (West et al., 2015). The focus in this chapter is on the critical role of leadership in learning analytics development and the challenges of implementatio...

In this article we report on the findings of a project funded by the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching and entitled “Learning Analytics: Assisting Universities with Student Retention.” While this project was primarily focused on retention as a potential outcome of learning analytics, its application could be related to the broader concept...

The development of written accuracy among learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) has always been a primary concern for ESL teachers and researchers in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition (SLA). While a vast body of research has examined written corrective feedback on students’ written products, few studies have focused on th...

The integration of social media into higher education is having a significant impact on learning and teaching. As they become enmeshed in the fabric of academia, they are also becoming a site of contestation, especially in relation to teaching and learning. This research paper explores the key issues dominating current debates about the use of soci...

Many university co-curricular programs or services are under pressure to demonstrate performance excellence and justify their continued existence. Many of these programs or services also resort to collating easily accessible data such as input, transactional and overall satisfaction data; produce some descriptive statistics; and subsequently write...

The role of educational developers (or academic developers) has become increasingly important in national and transnational contexts, in parallel with efforts to elevate the status of learning and teaching in higher education. In this chapter, the role of educational developers in driving institutional learning and teaching agendas is explored, wit...

Objectives: In this paper, a review of nursing education literature is employed to ascertain the extent to which nursing educators apply theory to their research, as well as the types of theory they employ. In addition, the use of research methodologies in the nursing education literature is explored. Design: An integrative review. Methods: A...

In this chapter, the SURF initiative at XJTLU is evaluated by using the connected curriculum framework (Fung and Carnell 2016). We demonstrate that the SURF initiative aligns closely with UCL’s Connected Curriculum framework (Fung 2016). For example, (1) it allows students to connect with staff at XJTLU and learn about ongoing research; (2) it prov...

Traditionally, there has been, and continues to be, a huge dichotomy in the university between research on the one hand and teaching on the other. Barnett (Understanding the university: institution, idea, and possibilities. Routledge, Abingdon, 2016) calls this dialectic of function, one of seven forms of dialectic that a university faces. Universi...

Agile PBL, within an agile PBL ecology for learning, is about humanising higher education through imaginative approaches to student learning, to teaching, to curriculum, to assessment, to faculty development, to interdisciplinary approaches that go well beyond the institutional walls, to student development and support, to curriculum sustainability...

When it comes to implementing a curriculum that aligns with an agile PBL ecology for learning, there are a myriad of elements and factors to consider, and they all impact to some extent on the ultimate success: graduates who can demonstrate the desired learning outcomes and are empowered with agile twenty-first-century skills that allow them to con...

This chapter revisits PBL and examines new types or ‘constellations of PBL’ (Savin-Baden M, J Excel Coll Teach 25(3&4):197–219, 2014) that are being proposed to meet yet unknown and uncertain challenges of the twenty-first century and to develop a mode of knowledge creation, application and management that is suited for an ‘age of supercomplexity’...

As suggested in Chap. 4, the learning outcomes we imagined for an agile PBL ecology for learning in this book not only do include (inter)disciplinary skills and knowledge but instead constitute a whole way-of-being, which includes an attitude and disposition. Agile PBL serves as a curricular and pedagogical vehicle to facilitate the development of...

This chapter explores the characteristics of a new generation of students and the idea of twenty-first-century skills. The particular emphasis here is how the two are, or should be, aligned and how an agile PBL provides opportunities to both draw on skills that a new generation of learners brings to the universities and empower these learners with...

In Chap. 3, we have identified the challenge in designing a technology-supported agile PBL environment that stays true to the original intentions of PBL and that leverages technology to enhance the impact of learning in teams, rather than reducing it. We have also imagined what we called the ‘next generation of learners’ and began to identify the c...

A human resource crucial to the success of an agile PBL curriculum and pedagogy is the academic teaching staff who are also known in the PBL literature and field as PBL facilitators. Facilitating or teaching students in an agile PBL environment is hugely important, yet it is a role that is very challenging for many academic staff involved in PBL, r...

Within an agile PBL ecology for learning, there are four interrelated systems or environments that feed into each other and depend on each other. In this chapter, we turn our attention to the exo-environments surrounding the students’ immediate formal micro-environment where learning, teaching and assessment interconnect to initiate the development...

In this book we respond to a higher education environment that is on the brink of profound changes and that consequently requires a continuous flexibility to education renewal at all levels. When we say it is on the brink, what we are really saying is that many of these changes are already underway.The internet and the World Wide Web have had huge...